The next stage of the digital revolution
Article Date: Apr 15 2009Peter Hinssen, a professor at London Business School, explains how the increasing computerisation of life will affect your business.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Transcript
A critical question is where are we in a digital revolution? And most people think we have arrived, whereas most research shows we’re probably about half way there. And for the last 25 years we’ve had digital, or we’ve had more and more digital, and now we’re getting into a situation where the next 25 years we will see the real impact of the digital revolution, and we will see that in a number of areas. First of all just in terms of people we’re beginning to see distinction between digital natives and digital immigrants. Most of us are digital immigrants because we came from a land that was non digital. Most people 20 years and younger are digital natives because they’ve always grown up in a digital society. There’s a very simple test you put a camera on a table and you ask what is it and we immigrants will say it’s a digital camera, and a native will look at it and say it’s camera because they’ve never seen an analogue camera in their life.
So it will be interesting to explore the second leg of the journey of the digital revolution.
The second leg is different – one very simple example is the fact that people have zero tolerance for digital failure. I mean in the first leg, we’ve gotten accustomed with things being digital and if things went wrong we said, well you know, they’re digital. In the second leg, digital is the norm and if something breaks down, doesn’t work, is at fault in a digital society, we won’t tolerate that any more. And that means people will switch from one bank to another, one provider to another, one company to another, if they don’t like their digital capabilities.
Another theme which is going to be vital is the revival of the human element because what we will see is more and more will have contact with organisations’ companies in a digital way whether it’s a call centre or email. We are now okay with a call centre that actually there’s not a human on the other side but it’s a computer. In the next leg what you will is that the human element will become luxurious again. When was the last time you got a hand written letter from somebody? That means something now. So in a context where things are more and more digital, luxury will be the human element.
Companies will really feel that also internally within their organisations, not in their relationship with the customers, but also with relationships with employees. We’re okay with people working at home now and we’ve given people Blackberry’s and iPhone’s, but this is just the beginning. In the real second part of the digital revolution the way we share knowledge within a company, the way we actually collaborate, the way we actually manage the content and the valuable assets of an organisation will be tremendously differentiated by the fact of how you use technology. So digital will have a profound impact, not just in the relationships with our customers but internally within the organisations as well.
So the key question that companies will have to solve is how we will deal with the second leg of the digital revolution? What decisions do you have to make as a business leader to make sure that your company can survive in that second leg of the digital revolution? How will you make sure that your customers will become digital and how can you maintain their digital loyalty as digital customers? Those key questions are going to be crucial to make sure that you have a chance to really make it this second leg.
Peter Hinssen teaches on a new two-day programme at London Business School, Realising Business Performance through IT.
